


Octo!john

by BeaverHatsAreTheCoolest



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Octo!John - Freeform, angst and a bit of fluff, there is some violence, tiny!John, um not really sure on how these tag things work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-12
Updated: 2013-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-26 08:59:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/964061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeaverHatsAreTheCoolest/pseuds/BeaverHatsAreTheCoolest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>My sister introduced me to octo!John recently and I thought that they were some of the cutest things ever! Especially the fan art! *squee!* However it made me sad that there wasn't a lot to read. So I decided to write my own take on octo!John. I just wanted a fluffy and short one-shot and be done. So of course I ended up writing this, a multi-chaptered angst fest. eh well. Read and enjoy. Feed back is welcome and appreciated</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Rescue

**Author's Note:**

> My sister introduced me to octo!John recently and I thought that they were some of the cutest things ever! Especially the fan art! *squee!* However it made me sad that there wasn't a lot to read. So I decided to write my own take on octo!John. I just wanted a fluffy and short one-shot and be done. So of course I ended up writing this, a multi-chaptered angst fest. eh well. Read and enjoy. Feed back is welcome and appreciated

Pain. The world was scary and painful. He could barely remember what the ocean was like. The calm and deep blue emptiness was something he never thought he would miss. But he found himself wanting it more than anything. He just wanted the pain to stop, to escape from these horrible creatures. Large hands reached towards him, herding him into a corner of his tank, despite his best efforts. There was nowhere to go, only to prolong the inevitable. He tried to dodge but the hand was too quick. A warm and roughly calloused hand encircled his whole body. He tried wriggling out of the fleshy trap but to no avail.  
“HELP!” he squealed as he was lifted up out of the water and dangled above the ground. He didn’t really know what the word meant. But earlier one of the female creatures had screeched it next to his tank and the males surrounding her backed off and ran. He thought it must be some sort of magic word. He opened his eyes, hoping to be greeted with the green and some-what murky water of his tank. No such luck. He flinched backwards as he took in the huge eye right in front of him.  
He tried again “HELP!”  
Laughter sounded all around him. “No one is coming to help you. No one CARES about you, FREAK!” A voice boomed vibrations shaking his body. He tried to cover his sensitive ears with his tiny hands, seeking some relief from the racket. Feeling desperate he bit the hand holding him as hard as he could. The tang of copper filled into his mouth. Gross. The fist, which up to this point had been uncomfortably snug, started tightening around him. Tighter and tighter until he could barely breathe. He opened his mouth, releasing the hand, to take in as much air as is chest would allow.  
The laughter increased, gaining a hard edge that it had lacked before.  
“Let’s teach this freak some manners.” The creature holding him looked down and contorted his lips into what he could only see as a threat and a promise of pain.  
“Wait, I have a better idea... the only thing this freak is good for is to be eaten.”  
another rougher hand grabbed one of his tentacles. He flinched. Suddenly the other hand disappeared and his one tentacle writhed in pain of hold all of his weight. Surprised that he was suddenly being held upside down he tried using his other tentacles to gain some purchase, relieve some of the weight off his aching tentacle, to flip himself back up. Teeth filled his vision, becoming blurry as he realized that the creatures planned to eat him alive. “HELP!” he sobbed out.  
__~__~__~__~__~__~__~__~  
Sherlock.  
He strode past all of the tents quickly, anxious to leave this dull circus behind. Honestly the whole case had been so tediously obvious. He thought it might have been at least a six but had turned out to be a dull and unimaginative four. The murderer had been dressing up as a clown and eating his victims. This was obvious by the slight limp and messy fingernails. Honestly, did anyone at The Yard think at all? He was passing one the last tents on the edge of the circus when he heard a small screech. He paused, intrigued. It was then that the mocking laughter reached his ears. His fists tightened. He heard the same small voice scream for help. Mind made up, he turned to walk away. Dull. Sherlock tried deleting the sounds of distress from his mind palace when he heard another voice say the words “...No one cares about you, FREAK!” Sherlock’s eyes narrowed as he turned back towards the tent entrance, already deducing the voice. Deep voice. Carries. Large man, wide chest. Most likely the leader of the group. Bully. Idiot.  
Sherlock crept inside the tent and took in his surroundings with a sweep of his eyes. The tent wasn’t well lit, but Sherlock was able to make out all sorts of empty cages, crates and tanks of water stacked up everywhere in the gloom. The middle of the tent was illuminated by an electric lantern, its artificial light casting an eerie glow on a group of people who stood in the center; A man stood in the amidst the group. As he watched, the man’s head tipped back, hand rising to dangle something towards his mouth. His words drifted over to where Sherlock was crouched behind an empty crate.  
“…the only thing this freak is good for is to be eaten.” Sherlock raised his eyebrows a little confused. Who were they talking to? Obviously it had to do with whatever the leader was lowering into his mouth, which Sherlock noted was some sort of octopus but it was hard to make out details from this distance, but where was the victim?  
“HELP!” the word was more sobbed than screamed. The words tugged at Sherlock’s heart. Looking over the bullies again he deduced that a simple scare would suffice in frightening the cowards off. Without further delay he stepped out of his shadowy hiding spot and yelled his deep voice ringing with authority, “POLICE. FREEZE.”  
Hearing him the group did exactly what he had expected. What all criminals did when hearing those words: Ran like hell in the opposite direction. Obvious. Dull.  
Quickly he approached the ground where they stood. “Who cried for help?” he muttered to himself.  
“Police… freeze.” A tiny voice wheezed.  
Sherlock furrowed his eyes brows and knelt on the ground scanning for the source of the tiny voice. His eyes lighted on the octopus. Well.. not octopus.. exactly. It would seem some sort of hybrid creature. The lower half is clearly a form of cephalopod. Eight tentacles, blue in color on top and a lighter blue on the underside, tiny suckers. But the upper half of the creature was unmistakably human. Male. Pale skin, hairless with the exception of a blond tuft at the top of the creature’s head. Fascinating. Sherlock reached out to pick it up. As soon as his fingers touched the creature’ shoulder (Cold. Damp. Smooth.) it jerked back, eyes snapping open it whimpered. “police…freeze” it whispered desperately. As if the creature believed those words were a talisman that could somehow protect him.  
“Interesting.” Sherlock breathed.  
~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~  
John:  
“POLICE. FREEZE.” An even deeper voice roared from a distance away.  
Then he was falling through open space. He closed his eyes, bracing for impact, bracing for more pain. THUD. A whimper of pain escapes his lips. He lay there eyes held tightly closed form the agony. His shoulder was the source of most of his pain. A warm touch to his should startled him badly and he flinched away from its intrusive prodding. Dazed he murmurs “pool-EE-ise…Fr-EE-ss.” Strong magic, maybe it would work for him, better than the magic word help. Help was useless. His eyes opened to assess the threat. A large pale hovered over him, long thin fingers twitched as if longing to reach out and touch him. He shrunk into the ground, forcing his body to lay as flat as possible; he scrunched up his face anticipating the bite of pain. He didn’t know what this pale one wanted but he was sure that all the giant creatures cared about was inflicting pain.  
_~_~_~_~_~_~_~  
Sherlock:  
It bothered him that such a tiny and innocent looking creature was so afraid of him. He started to murmur softly, “It’s alright. Those idiots are gone now. It’s going to be fine. Well.. most likely not. Well. I can’t promise you anything. Well logically, you have had quite a bad streak going. Obvious by you slight scars and scrawny look and the fact that you are living in a circus. Tell me, where are you from? How did you get here? Not on the ground obviously. England. How old are you? Where did you learn English?” Sherlock paused, giving the tiny half cephalopod time to answer. He frowned, unaware that at this point his voice had lost what little softness it had started out with, instead reverting back to his usual brusque manner. His brows furrowed as the small half octopus just laid on the ground, staring at him. Its tiny face was now blank, no longer scrunched up anticipating pain, but his eyes twinkled with what Sherlock thought was curiosity. “Well?” He snapped impatiently.  
“gorgs” The tiny creature finally said.  
“oh.” Of course. obvious. Despite the fact that the creature had been speaking English it clearly did not understand the meaning of the words. “interesting” he must have heard the words being spoken and produced a desired effect, therefore he mimicked the sound when he wanted the same affect. “you clearly have some intelligence. More than most people I would add.” The creature titled its head slightly in response, and moved one of its tentacles.  
Slowly Sherlock reached out again and gently grabbed the tiny body by the torso and lifted upwards, transferring the creature to his other hand. Sherlock then froze, allowing the entity to adjust to its change in position. It made no sound other than the first initial squeak.  
Sherlock brought his hand eyelevel. He studied it for a moment before resolving to return the creature to its tank and finally be on his way. Enough time had been wasted. And he certainly didn’t want to keep the tiny creature and take the thing back to Baker St with him. Even if the tiny half octopus was adorable. Nope. He didn’t. Standing abruptly, Sherlock cradled the creature in his hand and headed over to the large empty tank which he deduced belonged to the part cephalopod. He started to lower his hand in, forcing a smile because the creature started to shake and wrap his tentacles around Sherlock’s thumb.  
“Gogeps” the tiny creature squeaked. Sherlock tilted his head and again brought his hand to eye level.  
“do you want to come with me?” Sherlock asked and then berated himself. It isn’t like the thing can understand or answer you. Idiot.  
“Goppes” the creature replied, it then wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s thumb and looked up at him through its eyelashes.  
“Let’s go home.”  
Sherlock tucked the creature in his scarf, made sure it would stay there, and headed off, back into the cold dark night, headed finally towards home.


	2. Names

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should be writing a history paper, so instead I am going to post this. I hope you enjoy this short little chapter. More coming soon-ish.  
> hopefully future chapters will be longer.

One thing was for certain. The creature, needed a name. Sherlock huffed, if he had to awkwardly stumble to refer to the half cephalopod again, he was going to kill someone. Preferably Anderson. Startled by the puff of air that drifted over him, the creature looked up where he had been intently looking at the kitchen table. It then made a confused gurgle and turned back to the wood grain he was studying. “We need to give you a name.” Sherlock stated, mouth set in a firm line, trying to convince himself that, no he did not sound anything like a new parent. He was a fierce consulting detective, dammit! The creature looked back at him and blinked. “Obviously” it replied smiling. Sherlock raised an unimpressed eyebrow. The creature had started mimicking some of his more well-used phrases, parroting them back to him. He briefly considered the merits of only saying “Fatcroft” for a whole day, but then dismissed it and focused at the currently pressing matter. Names.  
“Okay, I will say names; you tell me which one you like the most.” Sherlock said, adjusting his sprawl on one of the kitchen chairs.  
He pointed to himself “Sherlock” then he pointed to the creature.  
“James?” The creature wrinkled his nose.  
“hmmm… Fred? No.. George?”  
“Richard?”  
“Harry?”  
“Bluebell?” The creature sniffed disdainfully.  
“Yes alright… what about Martin?  
After each negative reaction Sherlock got more and more frustrated. He slumped down, laying his head on the table with a dull thud. Granted he couldn’t be sure that the creature even knew what was going on, but Sherlock had deduced what the creature liked to hear. And he figured that the tiny half octopus should like the sound of his own name, and hopefully be able to say it.  
Sherlock had gone quite at this point, having run out of names that he had kept in his mind palace. He refused to name him after any of the idiots he knew.  
“Sherlock.” The creature had wiggled from his previous position to by Sherlock’s prone head. Sherlock propped his head up on the table, resting his chin on the hard surface. Starting at the creature until it fidgeted and repeated “Sherlock.”  
Sherlock blinked.  
“Sherlock” the creature rested a tiny hand on Sherlock’s cheek.  
Soft. Warm. Smooth. Surprisingly he enjoyed the contact. Sherlock filed that away to examine later.  
The creature then removed his hand and gestured to himself. “Sherlock.”  
Oh. “No, you can’t have the same name as me. That’s my name. It’s too confusing.”  
The tiny creature’s lips wobbled and its eyes widened. “Sherlock.” It mumbled.  
“No. Although I suppose I am lucky you didn’t latch on to something as pedestrian as John.” Sherlock said, trying to convince himself that if he let the creature have the same name as him, it didn’t mean that he was a big softie.  
“JOHN.” The creature squealed. Sherlock huffed.  
“I thought you wanted to be Sherlock?” Sherlock muttered crossly.  
“John, Sherlock!” the creature trilled in reply.  
“Fine. John it is.”  
No dammit, he was not disappointed that the creature…John liked the name john more than his. He just thought it would be fascinating to have a smaller Sherlock around. That was all.  
“There, now that we have that all settled let’s start teaching you words and what they mean, starting with: Fatcroft.” Sherlock sat up and looked at john. This going to be most entertaining.

**Author's Note:**

> Congratz, you survived the chapter! I will be surprised if anyone got here besides my sister. Hello trinapants!


End file.
